Photoshop Experimentation

Photoshop is a graphics editing program created by Adobe Systems, it allows you to completely transform images through retouching, reshaping, distorting and combining pictures. The software program was first introduced in 1990 and today still stands as one of the best and most popular photo editing sites in the world. I plan to use Photoshop through out the photography section in this course as I feel Photoshop is a vital element when it comes to editing photographs. I feel developing my Photoshop skills will help me in my future of photography as Photoshop really can benefit and improve any photograph. Photoshop is vital in the industry as can completely transform photographers work and make there images outstanding which is most photographers aim. It also is vital in the industry as 50% of the internet is photos so for company's and people who want to promote there brand or share there photos a good editing tool like Photoshop is important to be around. Also Photoshop is widely used and popular however it does also carry controversy around. People argue that Photoshop is controversial as it completely changes photos which is a good thing but sometimes can be bad as the extent people go to Photoshop an image, it often can make the photo look nothing like it was before.

This is what the Photoshop software looks like on the internet.











I will be experimenting with a range of techniques using Photoshop C3 including...

• Spot Healing
• Eye Colour Change
• Jasper James City Scape portrait 

Spot Healing 

In today's lesson of Photography we look at Photoshop tutorials that we could use on the images in our magazine. I choose to look at removing spots as if I take a close of up of my models I want to make sure no blemishes are visible.

This is the before image which shows visible acne on the girls face, I want to remove the blemishes to create a more polished finish. Also as my magazine will be fashion based its very rare you ever see an image with somebody not having flawless skin.

This is the after image which shows a visible change in the girls face. I started the Photoshop edit by creating a blank layer and renaming it 'spot healing'. I then selected the spot healing brush and selected 'sample all layers'. The last couple of steps I did was clicking 'content-aware' and finally changing the brush mode to 'lighten'. I will use the removing spot tool frequently when editing my images as I want to get a flawless finished on my images. Especially when a lot of my images will be in a close-up angle.

Eye Colour Change

I got the chance to experiment with Photoshop skills again one lesson in photography. I decided to look at the tutorial about changing eye colours as I thought it was an interesting effect and would be useful to know how to use for editing my magazine images.

This is the mid-editing shot of my colour change experiment. The models eyes in the original photo I found from the internet are bright and vivid; the turquoise blue of her eyes is the main focus of the image. However I wanted to change the emotion and decided to edit the colour of her eyes to be black to create a mysterious and dark feel to the image.

This is a screen grab showing the process of me doing the photoshop experiment 'colour change'. Where I changed the models eyes from electric turquoise blue to a mysterious shade of black. 

This is the 'after' photo of my eye colour change experiment. As you can tell the emotion of the image has completely changed; the model's eyes don't look so bright and she looks slightly alien like which I think is a unique look. To start with I selected the lasso tool and outlined the eye with it, I then added an outline of the pupil also with the lasso tool. Then I added a hue/saturation layer and selected the 'colorize' option. After that I adjusted the hue, saturation and lighting to change the eye colour.

Jasper James City Scape portrait 

Our task for today's lesson was to create a Jasper James style portrait. We used Photoshop to make the city scape's by completing simple steps. We started by finding our portrait's to use and an image of a city scape from Google. I choose an image of London as I liked the location and I thought it was really interesting image.

This is the landscape image I choose to use.
                                                                                                       
 

This is my own picture I choose to create the Jasper James style portrait.



To create a Jasper James style portrait you start by tracing the outline of your figure with the pen tool on Photoshop. After you've done this your outline should be completely black and the original figure will be covered up with the pen tool. Then open up a new blank layer and drag the outlined figure onto the new layer.

This is the end results of my Jasper James style portrait. I feel for a first time using this Photoshop technique the end results weren't to bad but could use improvements if I would do it again.